Tempting Tidbit Trials – Pizza Casserole

Time for another experiment with Tempting Tidbit Trials, a series where I get my butt in the kitchen and do recipe reviews of the recipes featured on Temptation Tuesdays.

If you’re looking for an easy and delicious recipe for the day BEFORE Thanksgiving, this is a real winner. I tip my hat to you Rachel – it seriously scores on the yummy gooey perfect feel good food factor!

This one features Pizza Casserole from Rachel at Peace, Love & Fabulous (featured on Temptation Tuesdays in July). I have to say I’ve been looking for an excuse to make this. It just looked so warm and bubbly and cheesy. It reminded me of cold winter days, rec league basketball and home. Don’t ask me why, but rec league sports and pizza casserole just seem to go together. Maybe it was one too many pasta dinner fundraisers.

For some reason though, every time I turned to make it, I’d get into the kitchen and realise I was missing an ingredient. Finally the stars aligned: I had everything on hand; a cold stormy day; and a great evening planned – cuddling in front of the TV with Hubby. The casserole didn’t disappoint. It was warm, gooey, and filling.

Somehow though, I couldn’t resist the urge to fiddle and used this Tempting Tidbit Trial to cross another thing of my pumpkin bucket list – pumpkin biscuits. We can’t get the store bought tin here, so I was going to have to make them from scratch anyway. Here it is, with my blow-by-blow in teal.

Here’s what you need:

1/2 jar pizza sauce I went for the whole jar, but maybe my jar was smaller?

olive oil In the end this wasn’t necessary (maybe because of the extra sauce)

your choice of toppings Tuna for Hubby and spinach for me =)

Here’s what you do:

Preheat oven to 375F (190C) I went a little hotter, especially in the last 10 minutes. I like a little crunch on top.

Oil 8×8 pan I didn’t – mostly because I forgot, but it turned out to be unnecessary (thankfully =p).

Break up biscuit dough into smaller pieces and put in mixing bowl. I put them directly into pan.

Add sauce, half the cheese, and toppings of your choosing.

Mix and pour into the pan Mine was already there. I just stirred it around in the pan. I’m lazy with dishes.

Bake for 25-35 minutes. I went on the low side of this, but I should have listened to Rachel and waited a little longer. It just looked so tempting all bubbling in the oven and everything.

Enjoy =)

And now for the pumpkin biscuits…

It’s a recipe that I found printed out and stuck in my recipe binder from 2 years ago. I could’ve sworn that I got it from SugarCrafter, but I can’t find it on her site now, or anywhere else for that matter. I’m going to share it here with my modifications (Sorry to whoever posted if first – I really did try and find the source. Even Uncle Google couldn’t help.) because this recipe deserves NOT to be lost. (makes 12 – though you only need 1/2 – 3/4 of the batch for the pizza casserole. Freeze the rest. You’ll be glad you did!)

Here’s what you need:

2 cups flour

1 tbs baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup pureed pumpkin

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup plain yoghurt

57g melted butter

1 tbs maple syrup

Here’s what you do:

Preheat your oven to 450 (230C).

Mix dry ingredients, set aside.

Combine wet ingredients. Make sure there are no leftover pumpkin lumps.

Add dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. You don’t want to over mix biscuits!

Now you have an option. Either roll out and cut your biscuits or spoon them out like you would cookie dough. I prefer the latter. It means the dough gets handled less.

Thanks! The pumpkin biscuits surprised me – they were so melt-in-your-mouth. We’re hosting again this year. We like to do it, both for our fellow expats and to share the tradition with our European friends. How about you?